Florida Hospital Medical Group buys Florida Heart Group

Florida Heart Group has been bought by Florida Hospital Medical Group effective Jan. 1 2013.

Details of the deal weren’t immediately available, and both parties didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Todd Persons, president of Todd Persons Communications Inc., said he received a letter from his Florida Heart Group cardiologist over the weekend letting him know of the deal.

“I think it’s just part of business these days with the smaller groups becoming pat of bigger groups,” Persons said. “And I can understand why. The business of medicine is very expensive, not only for the customers but for the physicians and the groups themselves.”

Maitland-based Florida Hospital Medical Group, which is affiliated with Orlando-based Florida Hospital, has 290-doctors, 110-locations and saw nearly 1 million patients in 2011, according to a previous Orlando Business Journal story in which Dr. Neil Finkler, chief medical officer of the group, said FHMG planned to add as many as 300 to 400 doctors in the next two to three years. FHMG has 125 to 150 employees.

Florida Heart Group PA was founded in Orlando in 1979, has 19 doctors and works in diagnostic imaging, women’s heart disease, interventional cardiology, adult congenital heart disease and heart failure, according to an unrelated 2012 press release. Florida Heart Group has three locations and a vein treatment center with ambulatory phlebotomy, endo venous laser ablation, compression stockings and ultrasound guided sclerotherapy.

The news hasn’t been announced on the company’s LinkedIn, Facebook, blog or Twitter accounts. This is a developing story; check back for more information.